Fearless hyena, Jackies directorial debut, is first part of his countryside trilogy. The other parts are The Young Master and Dragon Lord. In the historical time line these all three are set in the end of Qing-Dynasty (A.D. 1644-1911) and are placed on the countryside. In all three movies Jackie is a young kid who practises some kung fu, and gets fooling around making all kind of troubles. But then in a very hard situation he becomes a hero and saves the day. He is basically the same charecter - or just similar - as in Drunken Master, a kiddie who makes hard kung fu practises as punisment ordered by his master, really funny fooling around to avoid punisment and so on.

In Fearless hyena Jackies characters name is Chan by his last name. Evil eunuch (Ren Shiguan) destroys and kills most of the students of Xingyi kung fu school. Jackie is the youngest student still alive. We goes to the countryside to hide and practise some kung fu with his grandfather (James Tien). After many years eunuch finds them and Jackie will need his kung fu skill in the final fight, when Jackie fights for a revenge. In this film Jackie tries to reach real kung fu spirit, more realistic kung fu style. but it contains comedial touch, even thos more serious scenes including the final fight scene; Jackie uses his emotions against his enemy, sorrow for bluffing, anger for attack, happiness to avoid the blows and humour to tease the enemy. After all this is enjoyable film, plot is not unique and Jackie didn't really know if he was doing a tragic kung fu drama or a comedial martial arts film. Now it offers both of them.

And then some more: Christopher E. Meadows